


Dancing With John Wesley

by wneleh



Category: The Expanse (TV)
Genre: 3x11 "Fallen World", Gen, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-27
Updated: 2020-06-27
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:34:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24952408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wneleh/pseuds/wneleh
Summary: Pray without ceasing, John Wesley had said.  God was getting the good with the bad with the somewhat deranged today.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 5





	Dancing With John Wesley

Dancing with John Wesley

Anna isn’t frightened. Is she? Maybe. Her hands are shaking, and this is no good for putting on an evac suit, let alone for steering one through the vacuum of space.

Shit. Is she really going out there?

 _Holy God, guide my hands…_ **I’ve stared down lines of battle-ready UN troops, and delivered first aid while gang bullets were still flying. I can handle a few latches!**

And she’d watched the safety videos very, very closely, because she was the Reverend Doctor Annushka Volovodov and she didn’t screw up the little things. Ever. Well, hardly ever…

Cue: _She’s hardly ever sick at sea-eee-eee!_

Which was ridiculous, she thinks as she finishes snapping the helmet into place and sliding what she’s calling her Little Death Stick into a loop that seems designed for the purpose. She hates boats and does, in fact, get seasick. But not space sick. Well, not so far.

The hatch opens just as advertised, and now she’s in space. She’d expected an argument with the suit’s AI would be required to get oriented toward the _Rocinante_ , but Melba-no-Clarissa is visible, reflecting light from Anna-has-no-idea.

Meaning, she herself was probably hella reflective. _Dear God, maybe keep Melba from looking backward? Also, God, what’s up with MELBA? Did you do that? Sorry, I’m rambling._

Pray without ceasing, John Wesley had said. _So, God, you’re getting the good with the bad with the somewhat deranged today._

**Maybe figure out how to steer?**

And – well, it turns out it’s easier than Anna expected. She just sort of leans and the suit goes. Almost as if these things were designed for freaked-out first-timers.

Though she’s still not actually scared, she doesn’t think. Not like Wesley was, during his voyage to Georgia. No, she was having a Moravian experience, full of the knowledge of – well, no knowledge actually, just a desire to keep OMG-she-named-herself-Melba from doing yet more damage. 

Maybe she should have been a Moravian then; were Moravians still around? Or did they get absorbed by Methodism at some point, or maybe the Menonites? She doesn’t know, and has no idea how she doesn’t know.

God’s love and eternal presence. That’s it. That’s the knowledge she’s full of. A-minus for Anna! B-minus for John Wesley.

_Sorry, John; you did good in the end. I mean, did well. Well, well and good._

**Hypoxia much?**

_Just a little disassociation. I’ll be fine._

**Good, because it looks like MelbaClarissa's found the front door!**

This was about to get interesting.

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to make sure that “Dancing With John Wesley” wasn’t a thing, so I googled and found that Keith Ward used the expression in his 2019 _Confessions of a Recovering Fundamentalist_ ; I read a chunk of the book and it looks pretty good.
> 
> Ward gets a little into the “Wesleyan Quadrilateral,” which it turns out was exactly the bit of Methodist theology (or at least the Sunday School version, which is all I can keep in my head) that I’d been looking for. Not that I really used any of it. I also watched a couple of lectures on Youtube, most usefully Ryan Reeves’s [Life of John Wesley](https://youtu.be/xCKzOhUaG94).


End file.
